The Atlantic Monthly recently published a list of the 15 Most Hated Companies in America. Among them: Dell and Toyota, two brands I’ve loved with a passion. Sadly, I have concluded the survey is right about them.

I was in love with Dell. Of course, I was young at the time. I knew little about technology, and Dell gently initiated me to the art of PC love. I learned that a 3G network is not an erogenous zone but a way to engage with multiple partners at the same time. Dell periodically repaired our relationship through the help of call center shrinks with soothing Indian voices. Dell taught me that gently tapping on my screen does not accelerate the speed of email transmission, as I had thought, and besides, it’s not about speed but about the soulfulness of the interaction. Dell has coached me on how to think of the world from the perspective of the PC, how to take time to boot up, and how to deal with the blue screen of death.

But my PC partner has become so self-absorbed in the last few years that I no longer feel the love. The PC docking station I use at my office has become the latest cause for separation, and I have initiated the process. When love is gone, the simplest things become huge. Dell used to offer rails that made it easy to slide my PC into the docking station every morning. Gone now are the rails, apparently a result of the latest round of cost-cutting. Not only is my PC partner less and less attractive, but I can no longer afford the relationship.

To replace the rails, I’ve had to build my own integrated PC guidance system. The system involves some phosphorescent red tape strategically placed on my lacquered mahogany desk and a couple of flashing lights. The good news is that this dramatically enhances the aesthetics of my desk: my wife tells me nobody in the world has one quite like it (and she’s in the museum business). The problem is that beyond the airport guidance system development cost, we had to develop a training program to coach our zealous cleaners not to move the docking station when they dust it at night, because whenever they do, we incur massive recalibration costs for the system in the morning. The productivity of my office colleagues has also plummeted because the only way to avoid the crash landing that typically characterizes my unassisted attempts is for the four of them to rush into my office when I arrive and prevent the irreparable recurrence.

My other love was Toyota. With the exception of an old Polish-Italian car I had when a student, I have owned only Toyotas (five of them). I’ve had a lot of first experiences in my Toyotas (don’t ask), so saying that I was emotionally attached to the brand is an understatement. I had grown from a tiny white Corolla that could easily disappear in the Wisconsin snow to a huge red Land Cruiser I used to drive the one mile between my house and my office, all the while pretending I was a rough rod-and-gun guy who slept with bears on weekends. About a year ago, I decided it was time to downsize and buy an RAV4.

Over the last year, this RAV4 has marked the gradual descent into hell of my relationship with Toyota. First, there have been factory recalls, which have slowed down our love life. But the main problem has turned out to be elsewhere. Because Toyota keeps loading the car with more and more electronics, the battery of the car discharges after three or four days of staying idle. The issue is that I pretty much travel for at least three or four days every week, which guarantees I have to jump-start my car about 50 times a year. This has created some tension in the relationship I have with my car, and ugly scenes have erupted between us.

AAA has tried to mediate our disputes, and the acquisition of super long jumper cables allowing me to connect to my wife’s car battery without moving either car out of the garage has alleviated some of the tension, but this threesome arrangement has proven awkward. The smart people at the Toyota dealership have provided me with an accessory that prevents the battery from discharging when I’m away, but it requires remembering to plug it under the hood every time I leave, and it does not allow me to leave my car at the airport. “Use a limo service” was the encouraging word from the service guy at the Toyota dealer. “Your car will be at home, comfortably awaiting you.” Forgetting to unplug the gizmo when taking off with the car after a trip also provides an interesting opportunity to rip off a good chunk of the garage wall.

I recently decided Dell and Toyota no longer cared about me, and I have decided to see other brands. I will always have a soft spot for Dell and Toyota, and they’re all over my photo album. But we shall not grow old together.

Who I Am

I am a consultant and teacher who logs hundreds of thousands of air miles each year to share the principles of co-creation worldwide. As the President and Co-founder of the Experience Co-Creation Partnership (ECC Partnership), I work with a roster of global companies to implement co-creative, transformational programs, and processes. The April 2013 issue of Harvard Business Review features an article that I co-authored with Douglas Billings, "Community-Powered Problem Solving" illustrating how a brick and mortar business co-created solutions with their partners and changed the rules of the game. Earlier I co-authored (with Professor Venkat Ramaswamy) the book "The Power of Co-Creation: Build It with Them to Boost Growth, Productivity, and Profits" (Simon & Schuster Free Press, October 2010) and the Harvard Business Review article "Building the Co-Creative Enterprise" (October 2010).

WHY I BLOG

Co-creation is about connecting people’s brains. There is a method, a framework that can be taught conceptually and tools that can be implemented inside organizations. But at the heart of it is a personal transformation of people who suddenly see the world through a different lens. Consultants cannot tell those stories because of confidentiality. Academics are too removed from field work to have access to them. As if living at the intersection of these two worlds did not make me schizophrenic enough, I find myself of late developing a third, more humanistic streak: an urge to talk about the profoundly human aspect of co-creation. The stories I share in this blog are those of real people who have touched me in the somewhat random peregrinations of my global consulting and teaching career. Each of them embodies, in one form or other, the co-creation effect.